Blogging Elements

Blog Publishing Basics: How To Manage Authors and Users For Your Blog

Posted on 12. Jan, 2010 by Ashwin in Blogging

For most of the readers of Blogging Elements, blogging is a private and solo affair since most of the readers here are either just starting out or they have just begun their blogging journey. There might be a few of you who are looking to run a multi-author blog or a community blog of sorts. In that case, it will help to know the various roles WordPress provides for managing your multi-author blog. Each of these roles has a certain level of access to WordPress features while publishing posts:

· Contributor: This role has the least level of access on your blog’s publishing panel. As a contributor, you can only write your posts and save them as drafts. The usual posting functions can all be used though. Your blog posts will be held for a review by editors or Administrator before being published. It’s a good idea to make new authors contributors so that you can exercise a bit of quality control.

· Author: When you are an author, you can write your posts, upload images or videos and publish the post all by yourself. You wouldn’t need an approval from the editors or the administrator. Authors may also be allowed to delete their own posts and respond to comments made on their articles.

· Editor: Editors are the busy bees who will ensure quality control, check for grammar, syntax, rhetoric, and plagiarism. They make sure that the writing quality is up to standards and that there is no deviation in the communication protocols. They have all privileges enjoyed by both contributors and authors.

· Administrator: Administrators have the ultimate level of access in your publishing panel. They can do all that contributors, authors and editors can do apart from being able to tweak and tinker with anything within the blog’s administration. It is usually you, the owner of the blog, who becomes an administrator by default. You may also assign other users to be your administrators so that they can manage your blog on your behalf.

You may have as many users, contributors, authors or administrators for your blog as you deem necessary. This is really a nice feature if you intend to use WordPress for a multi-author blog, a corporate blog or a community blog.

Tags: Authors, Blog Publishing, Blogging Basics, Managing Your Blog, Users, WordPress